Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You The King Of Humans”: Bug Squashing [Review]

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” sets itself up as an epic clash between champions. However, it soon becomes apparent that the fight isn’t even remotely a fair one. Spoilers: it’s not Jin-woo. As a result, despite the setup and how good-looking the fight is, it feels like one of the weaker fights in the entire anime. It’s almost literally just someone squishing a bug, really.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans”: Details

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” is the 12th episode (you can read my review of the anime film containing Ep. 13-14, and then Ep. 15, Ep. 16, Ep. 17, Ep. 18, Ep. 19, Ep. 20, Ep. 21, Ep. 22, and Ep. 23 here) of the second season of this dark urban fantasy and portal fantasy action anime, and the 24th episode overall. You can read my reviews of all 12 episodes of the first season here.

Said anime series is the anime adaptation of the South Korean web novel and webtoon of the same name by writer Chugong and featuring illustrations by Jang Sung-rak (aka DUBU), with h-goon adapting it into a manhwa form later. A-1 Pictures (Black Butler, Sword Art Online, Lycoris Recoil) is the animation studio behind this anime film. Crunchyroll is the company licensing this anime film for its global release. Save for in SEA region, where Medialink is the company licensing this anime film there.

Production Crew

Ryūtarō Suzuki is the director behind Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans”, with Noboru Kimura, Ryūtarō Suzuki and Yoshihiro Kanno as the storyboarders, and Hirotaka Tokuda as the chief animation director.

As for Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- as a whole, Shunsuke Nakashige is still the director, and Noboru Kimura is still the screenwriter.  Yasuhiro Okumura is the background art director, Yuji Kondo is the editor, Tomoko Sudo is the character designer, Hirotaka Tokuda is the monster designer, Toshitaka Morioka is the CG director, Naomi Nakano is the color designer, Ryo Tanaka is the sound director, Daichi Iseki is the VFX director, Sotaro Shiriaishi is the prop designer, Hiromu Oshiro is responsible for motion graphics, and Hiroyuki Sawano composes all the music we hear in the anime.

Speaking of that music: the opening theme song for this second season is “Reawaker” by Lisa (feat. Felix of Stray Kids). Meanwhile, “Un-Apex” by TK from Ling Tosite Sigure is the ending theme song.

Voice Cast

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” features the voice of Taito Ban (Aleks Le in English dub) as Sung Jinwoo.

Other notable voice roles in this episode include Hiroki Tōchi (Christopher R. Sabat in English dub) as Baek Yoon-ho, Reina Ueda (Michelle Rojas in English dub) as Cha Hae-in, Daisuke Hirakawa (Ian Sinclair in English dub) as Choi Jong-in, Akio Otsuka (Brent Mukai in English dub) as Ma Dongwook, Junya Enoki (Lee George in English dub) as Min Byung-Gyu, Kohsuke Toriumi (Johnny Yong Bosch in English dub) as Lim Tae-Gyu, and Banjō Ginga (Kent Williams in English dub) as Go Gun-hee.

When and Where to Watch

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” made its airing and streaming (aka. simulcast) debut on March 22, 2025. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this entire anime series only on Crunchyroll due to it being an exclusive there.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans”: Synopsis

Alas, Solo Leveling is still an ongoing anime series, although it may end soon with the next episode. In fact, Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” only just made its debut five days ago as of this writing. Thus, I shall give you the official synopsis from Crunchyroll in place of a spoiler-filled plot summary. You can check synopsis that out below:

“Jinwoo arrives at Jeju Island to save the S-Rank hunters, but to do that he’ll have to face the Ant King.”

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans”: The Good

Despite its flaws, the action sequences of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” is still the best part of it. Not least of which because it’s one of the few goods things about it. The sequences look amazing, with A-1 Pictures’ animators clearly putting a lot of effort and hard work into them.

And despite how chaotic the fight scene was between Jin-woo and the Ant King, the action was actually pretty easy to follow. Even as glowing trails of light, they do intersect with each other in ways that make sense. Not only that, but the zipping lights are often interrupted by actual scenes of the combatants clashing, which does give a sense of continuity to the fight despite the scenes being so seemingly disparate. At the very least, I can’t fault the animators for doing their best with what they’re given.

Oh, and the music of the fight scene is very good. Hiroyuki Sawano did a particularly amazing job with the music for this fight, and helped enhance that action. It’s a shame that the rest of the scene doesn’t quite hold up.

Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans”: The Bad

That said, the action sequence of Solo Leveling Season 2 -Arise from the Shadow- Ep. 24 “Are You the King of Humans” is both the best and the worst parts about it. Mostly in a meta sense. There’s a massive amount of buildup to it, complete with healing up all the other S-rank Hunters, as if preparing us for an epic clash between champions of equal strength. Instead, we just get a curbstomp battle in which Jin-woo never feels like he’s in any danger at any point during the fight. Oh, there’s a little bit in which the Ant King gets in a serious-looking strike, but Jin-woo heals it so quickly that it’s a moot point. Honestly, I just feel disappointed by the fight.

The story is the other thing that’s bad about this episode. Jin-woo is allegedly in a hurry because his healing potions didn’t work on one of the S-rank Hunters. And yet, he toys with the Ant King and seemingly takes his sweet time killing him instead of going all-out from the start. It creates a narrative dissonance between the story and the character in a way that both leaves massive plot holes and makes Jin-woo look both stupid and callous. Alas, the story by Chugong is not the strong point of the anime, as you might’ve noticed. You’re better off watching  Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, and/or Blue Box if you want good action and good story.

What do you all think? Do you think the action of this episode of Solo Leveling is any good? Does it overcome the story weaknesses? Give us your opinions below in the comments section.

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